


Fools Who Play with Fire: Part II

by writersstareoutwindows, YogfairyWorld



Series: YogfairyAU [2]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Fire, Gore, Swearing, Yogfairy AU - Freeform, giant bat monsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 09:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4823771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writersstareoutwindows/pseuds/writersstareoutwindows, https://archiveofourown.org/users/YogfairyWorld/pseuds/YogfairyWorld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Looking for answers to their sudden transformation, the Hats encounter an old evil in the forest. For the yogfairyau.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fools Who Play with Fire: Part II

**Author's Note:**

> Written by Writersstaresoutwindows. Credit for the original script and plot of this story goes to Falcons-strike.

_Welcome to the forest, to flower fairies and lightning mages, to cursed humans and tainted exiles. Shadows lurk here, black and purple. Still, there is much that is good, if only you look. But mind you don’t look too long, or you may never leave._

_~_

_Fools who play with fire are the first to burn._

_~_  
It was getting very, very dark. The three friends who were not used to their wings stumbled in and out of the air at the edge of the forest. Sometime after escaping their burning home, Ross had suggested they look for real fairies to help them figure out what had happened to them. Although Trott had hesitated due to the fact that he’d kidnapped and accidentally exploded a fairy, he’d finally agreed.

But only after he saw Smiffy twirling a ball of fire in his hand.

“Okay, guys.” Trott spoke from the lowest branches of a tree. Ross was somewhere above him, and Smiffy lit up the ground below. “If you were a fairy, where would you be?”

“Well, we are fairies...” Smiffy grumbled. “...and we have no idea where the fuck we are...”

“Can you try to contribute something helpful, please?”

“I don’t know,” Smiffy snapped. “Maybe the middle of the forest. Fuck off.”

“Maybe in the middle of your forest,” Ross said.

There was a pause.

“That was shit,” Smiffy said.

“It was quite shit.”

“Well…you’re shit. And I’m tired. I’m tired and you’re shit. Shitty shitty bang bang.”

Trott was trying to think of a reply to that train wreck of a statement when Smiffy’s bright fire wings lit up next to him. The look on his face was far from heartening.

“The only thing that’s shit around here is the person who stuck us with wings and whatever the hell in the first place.”

Trott rubbed his aching hands and tried not to shout. “I didn’t know what was going to happen.”

“Great.” Smiffy’s wings flared. “Great! That’s great, Trott. You didn’t know what you were fucking doing when you brought a fucking magical thing into our house!”

“Yelling isn't going to help!” He was trying so hard to stay calm.

“Well too bad, mate!”

Ross dropped from the branch above. His eyes darted around the dark forest. “Maybe you shouldn’t be shouting so loud. We don’t know what’s out here.”

Trott clapped his shoulder. “You make a fantastic point.”

“Fine.” Smiffy’s balled fists were burning, but he shut up.

They traveled on in darkness, surrounded by soft chirps and rustling, but none of it sounded like fairies. Maybe a titter here and there, but nothing more. It was a cool night, so they stuck near Smiffy’s wings. He lit their way over tangled brambles and increasingly thicker trees.

Ross was about to comment on how big Smiffy’s fire was getting when his friend snapped. Suddenly Trott was against a tree with an arm across his neck.

“What—the hell!” Trott screeched. Grabbing Smiffy’s t-shirt hurt his hands.

Smiffy’s face was pale and full of rage, maybe that fire was doing something more to him than keeping him warm.

“If you hadn’t gone chasing fairytales, WE WOULDN’T BE HERE!”

Trott felt himself give in to his own fury. He pounded on Smiffy’s chest.

“That’s not what you were saying when I came home with a real fucking fairy! That’s not what you were saying when you thought we’d be rich! You mocked me for weeks, then when I was right, you turned like THAT!” He snapped his fingers. “And then again! You were so FUCKING happy and now you’re trying to fucking KILL me!”

Trott was having trouble breathing. A few hours ago, Smiffy had lifted him on his shoulders in triumph, but just after that he set their house ablaze. Now he was throttling him.  
“Smiffy!” Ross yelled. “Stop! Holy shit, you’re gonna—”

His silence was so sudden and jarring that it felt like the world had gone dead. Smiffy pulled back and Trott slumped in the air, wings fluttering weakly. Beyond the light of Smiffy’s wings, the night was just black. There was nothing to see,  
no sign of Ross.

The forest was absolutely silent.

Then, a beating of leathery wings. A scream. A chill in the air. The sound of something tearing.

Smiffy dropped to the ground and closed his wings. His fire went out, so he really felt the cold. Trott alighted quietly behind him. The noise came from the other side of the tree, so they stayed as quiet as they could.

“What the fuck is that?” Smiffy whispered.

“I don’t know.”

They both tried to keep a quiver out of their voices. A dim flame smoked to life in Smiffy’s hand. He pushed Trott behind him as he edged around the tree.

“Stay behind me.”

“Not arguing, mate.” The attempted throttling was quite forgotten.

Flickers of light reached the edge of a scene that stopped them where they stood. Trott’s stomach dropped past his feet. Smiffy wanted to scream.

Ross lay facedown. The hood was torn off his sweatshirt, and there was dirt and blood on his clothes. Towering over him was a vampire bat whose body melted into the shadows beyond Smiffy’s light. In his mouth was a pair of pale white wings, veined in chestnut brown. There was a v-shaped wound on Ross’s back.

The bat chewed and tore at Ross’s wings. He was eating them, and it looked like he was enjoying it. They leaked magic and blood across his red-stained teeth. Every bite he took made Smiffy throb with rage. Behind him, Trott’s fists were balled so tight that his fingernails left crescent moons in his palms.

Smiffy was away before Trott had time to stop him. He wasn’t sure if he would have, anyway. Smiffy’s arms flamed as brightly as his eyes.

“Get the FUCK off my friend, you—fucking son of—” He couldn’t find words strong enough and he couldn’t scream loudly enough.

The bat looked up from his meal and met Smiffy’s fierce gaze with gaping red eyes. And then, he grinned a terrible, toothy grin.

“I’m sorry. Was this your friend?” His guttural voice rattled in their ears like a tune played wrong. Like something alive that shouldn’t be. He spoke so painfully slowly. “He was delicious.”  
Smiffy flung a ball of fire at the bat with all the fury-fueled strength he had. The bat merely tucked in his wing so it soared past. The bush behind him went up in flames immediately. Its light revealed the bat’s massive size. He towered over all of them, his wingspan more than five times Smiffy’s own.

Smiffy wondered what deep shit he’d gotten himself into.

Then the bat’s eyes wandered to Trott. The fire had erased any shadows hiding him. He went cold when their gazes met.

“You have another friend.” His voice practically dripped. “I see. A merry band of fae on a night stroll. Oh, but that’s charming.”

“He’s got magic.” Smiffy stumbled over himself trying to stand between this monster and his friend. “He’ll fuck you up if you even go near him.”

The bat stretched his wings, throwing them all into shadow as he blocked the fire. “If that were so…wouldn’t he have used it already?”

Smiffy felt trapped by those bright scarlet eyes. The bat smiled. He blew out the flames wrapping Smiffy’s arms, plunging them into total darkness. The silence felt painfully drawn out as he staggered through the darkness to find Trott, he just had to find him, get there before—

Another scream. Smiffy screamed with him. All his fear turned into terror and guilt that meant to swallow him alive.

He used his wavering fury to light up his arms. Blue-and-orange wings disappeared into the bat’s mouth. Trott was bleeding on the ground.

“NO!”

Smiffy charged, lit up like a human torch, a million sparks in his mind. One burned most of all; 'it’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s all my fault.'

He launched into the air. His burning fingers dug into the bat’s fur, and he held on as the bat swung around. Only a rough takeoff shook Smiffy off, but he rolled out of the way before the bat’s claws slashed down. He threw ball after ball of fury and flame, screaming all the while. He had fucked up, he had fucked up badly but this monster was going to pay.

The bat realized that the fire put him out of his depth. He was too big to avoid it all, and he struggled to put out his fur. Smiffy’s screaming hurt his hypersensitive ears. After only a few heated seconds, in which he failed to so much as touch the burning fairy, he started turning tail.

“Let me know when you take another night stroll. I would like to meet more of your friends!”

He vanished into shadow, trailed by fire. The beating of his wings went quiet unnaturally soon.  
Smiffy was shaking as he dragged Ross toward the tree. His flames had dimmed so much that he could barely see, and the tears on the edge of his vision didn’t help any. He propped his best friends up, then pulled off Ross’s hoodie and did his best to stop them bleeding. Soon his arms and face were red and the jacket was shredded, but they were no better. He wanted to scream. He wanted to scream. He wanted to just scream and scream and hit them until they just fucking became better.

'If I hadn’t—if I’d just—why the hell did I—'

“Do you need help?”

Someone else had snuck up behind him, as quiet as air. He moved like shadow and looked like it too; with a scarf wrapped round his mouth and long, feathery, moth-like eyebrows. The only light thing about him was the blonde streak in his dark hair.  
He had framed it as a question, but it was really just a statement. Smiffy needed help, badly. He was so relieved that he started shaking again, but he didn’t want to just trust this guy with everything. He didn’t have the choice not to, though.

“Please…” He covered his mouth when his voice cracked. “Please help me.”

The fairy whistled, and a blue-black crow seemed to materialize from darkness. He worked quickly, wrapping Ross and Trott in mouse leather before securing them to the crow’s back. Smiffy watched in stunned relief, helpless and grateful and guilty and afraid all at once.  
The fairy mounted his bird, then held out an arm to Smiffy. He didn’t move.

“Where are you taking us?”

“Somewhere safe.”

Smiffy stared at the offered hand. There was no part of him that wanted to move ever again.

“We need to go now. They’re dying.”

Smiffy stared blankly.

“I should have stopped it. I should have just fucking—this is my fault—”

The fairy crouched on the ground and stood very close to him. They were almost exactly the same height. He looked at him with luminous yellow eyes.

“I don’t know where you came from. But I can see that you care about them.”

On a normal night Smiffy would shake that off with some dumb joke. That’s all they ever did, laugh and joke and say really stupid stuff. When everything was fine it was easy to be comfortable enough to pretend he didn’t care.  
This was not a normal night.

“What I need you to do now is get on my mount and come with your friends.”

The fairy put his hands on Smiffy’s shoulders. He spoke with deep intensity.

“They need you now. They need you to be there if they live or if they die. Do you understand?”

Smiffy looked away. But he nodded.

“Then let’s move. Now.”

****

_Klang. Klang. Klang._

The alarm from an old church bell sent ripples through the sleepy community. Candles and fireflies lit up in waves beneath the circling crow. The masked fairy rang the bell three times before flying back and guiding them to a landing.  
Several fairies fluttered from their mushrooms and trees and nutshell homes.

The first was a stocky black-haired man, his eyes made huge by glasses with dewdrop lenses. From what could have been a watchtower flew a woman in a nightgown and oversized mouse leather jacket, her blonde hair twisted out of her face.

“We have injured! Get Minty!” yelled the masked fairy as they touched down.

In just a moment a woman appeared, her dress plain brown, her hair tied up in a scarf. Her expression was alert and concerned.

“Where are they? Who’s hurt?”

The masked fairy didn’t speak again after his announcement. He just gestured at the two bloody bundles near Smiffy. In a moment, and with just a few words, Minty rallied four fairies to carry Ross and Trott to her hollow-log hospital. She commanded easily, as if she’d done this before. More than once.  
Smiffy wanted to follow, but the man with glasses stopped him outside the hospital. He was short but tough.

“I’m sorry, there’s nothing you can do now. They’re in the best hands.”

Smiffy rubbed his eyes. “Yeah.” He didn’t have an argument left in him. He just collapsed into the dirt with his back against the log and waited.

Minty moved quickly, summoning bandages and setting up tables. Her assistants worked easily around her. In only moments Ross and Trott were facedown with their bandages removed. There was a lot of blood.

“This one’s got bad burns on his hands, how did he—? Never mind, we’ll deal with it later. Nilesy!”

The man with glasses started. “Yeah?”

“Come in, I need you to stop their bleeding. They’ve lost too much, they can’t afford any more.”

“Wait, both? At the same time?”

“Yes!” she snapped. “Both at the same time! I need to get this done as quickly as possible.”

“Okay, okay.” Nilesy put up his hands in defense. There was no fighting Minty—she usually won, because she was usually right. He vanished inside the hospital.

Meanwhile, outside the log infirmary, a blonde woman approached Smiff. She had big, feathery owl wings that matched the primary feathers under her blue eyes. What he liked most about her were the two cups of soup in her hands.

“Hey,” she said tentatively.

“Hey.”

She sat beside him. “Rough night?”

“You could say that.”

She handed him a wooden cup. It warmed his hands.

“I thought you might not have had anything to eat in a while. Name’s Lomadia, by the way.”

“Smiffy.”

She nodded, then sipped from her cup. “Try it. It’s good.”

He did. It was hot and heavy and full of vegetables and meat and gravy. He swore he’d never tasted anything better. Maybe there was a little bit of magic in the broth, too. He stumbled over a thank you.

“No problem. You looked like you needed it.”

“I guess. It’s just, it’s been crazy. You know?”

Her piercing eyes studied him. “I don’t.”

“Oh, fuck, right, of course not. It’s—a long story.”

She shrugged. “It’s too late to go back to sleep. Or too early, I guess.” She nodded at the tree-covered horizon. “Sun’s coming up.”

“That’s fair.” He shivered. It had gotten so cold without his fire.

That didn’t go unnoticed by Lomadia. She shrugged out of her jacket and draped it over him despite his protest. After a second he gave up and snuggled into it.

He told her about the captured fairy while awkwardly trying and failing to avoid the part where she’d exploded. Lomadia didn’t comment on that, however, positive or negative. He told her about waking up with wings and how his were made of fire, and how that went a little south when their house went up. He told her about searching for fae to help them, and the vampire bat, and how everything went wrong.

Lomadia was quiet for a while after he finished. Smiffy’s arms were crossed as he waited for judgment.  
Finally she said, “You were human?”

“Just this morning.”

“And you conjure fire?”

Smiffy spread one of his wings, which immediately lit up. “That would appear to be the case, yeah.”

There was another long pause. She was watching the lightening sky, processing.

She looked back with one more question on her lips. “And you met a bat. That’s why your friends are hurt?”

Smiffy pulled the jacket tight around himself. He felt a chill in the air.

“Yes. Does that mean something?”

When Lomadia sighed, her breath made a cloud in the air.

“I don’t know.”


End file.
